Paint

Preparing the Arizona Palette

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I kind of made fun of myself in the New England Palette post for attempting to prepare “palettes of place” for places that I don’t know using third-hand research and commercial palettes as guides, but guess what? I don’t know any other way to prepare for travel. I’m going visiting near Phoenix, AZ, for the first time for Christmas, so I’m trying to figure out what colors to bring!

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Mix Your Own Buff Titanium Lookalike

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I used to have Buff Titanium but I don’t anymore. Its light tan color is useful and convenient because it’s common in nature, but I didn’t like the opaque, chalky way that it mixed. It is basically white, after all. Still, many artists like it. Jane Blundell talks about using it for sand, along with Goethite Brown Ochre. Claire Giordano uses buff titanium for desert/canyon scenes, as a base for sandstone rocks. It works really well, and while working one of her Capitol Reef scenes, I actually went so far as to put another tube of Buff Titanium in my cart… but then I challenged myself to make some light tan mixes with colors I already had, just to see if I might like them better.

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Another Earth Yellow showdown!

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My last Earth Yellow showdown is not, it turns out, the last word on earth yellows! I love earth yellow and I collect them. I’ve added a few more to the comparison. Here’s every color in the map above. I tried to put these in roughly cool-to-warm order (greenest undertone to orangest undertone). Top row: … Read more

The New England Palette

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Before I first traveled to Vancouver, I researched colors that might be particularly useful there, such as paints in the M. Graham “Pacific Northwest” kit, and the palettes of PNW artists such as Molly Hashimoto. Based on that research, I decided to add Dioxazine Violet and Perylene Green to my travel palette, and to make … Read more

Autumn Palette 2024 Revisited

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I’ve been using my autumn palette outside and in timely paintings for about a month, and I feel I have gathered enough experience to quickly review the colors and see if my expectations matched reality. Top Tier Colors I’m using these a lot: Also Good Borderline Not used as much as I expected What am … Read more

Sketching Palettes vs Triad Palettes

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Reading Hazel Soan’s The Art of the Limited Palette and trying some triad paintings has given me a different perspective the colors that I reach for and the way that I think about my color library. The colors you choose for a walking-around sketching palette are somewhat different than the colors you choose for a triad.

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Artist Palette Profiles: Jill Gustavis

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Jill Gustavis is a watercolor artist from Western Massachusetts. On Instagram, she did a 100 Days project where she painted with different triads, which is definitely interesting to me with my newfound interest in limited palettes. She has some great blog entries; I’ve read her post, Magic Happens When You Repeat Paintings, several times. I don’t usually like repeating paintings, but she makes a great case for exploring, and I love every iteration of her example.

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Limited Palette Study: Phthalo Blue Green Shade, Indian Yellow, Perylene Violet

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I chose this palette for a night sky painting – and to play with two new Schmincke colors, Indian Yellow and Perylene Violet! Phthalo Blue Green Shade is a classic cyan: bright, but transparent enough to achieve dark masstone. Indian Yellow is a combination of two warm yellows (PY154 and PY110), similar to DS New Gamboge. Perylene Violet is an oddball choice for me, because I usually find it too dark and dreary, but it’s perfect for the deep, dark violets of a night sky.

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